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Spoken like a true coward.

(Credit:

Flickr user: variable resistance)

Sometimes, but not often, The 404 Podcast wades into foreign territory and needs help getting out. Luckily, we have Natali Del Conte on hand to dish out some much needed advice about how to approach someone on public transit. Is it taboo to introduce yourself? Should you offer a business card? Is there some kind of unspoken agreement not to talk to anyone else on the New York Subway?

Natali answers all these questions and more in the first half of the show and even gives us homework to read, and although none of this really applies to Jeff “Palm Prenup” Bakalar, Wilson and I hope today’s show helps you as much as it helped us.

Speaking of reading, Barnes & Noble yesterday released its own e-reader called the Nook. The $259 device has an e-ink display, built-in Wi-Fi, 3G over AT&T, and 2GB of internal storage. CNET Editor-at-Large David Carnoy was at yesterday’s launch, so check out his take.

If you’re not completely sold on the Nook (or even the name), check out the Entourage Edge, a gadget to come that combines a Netbook, notepad, and media player into one folding tablet-size machine. The Nook’s e-ink screen and the ability to share books with friends for free whets Wilson’s whistle, and he claims that this might be the one reader to rule them all, but let’s face it: until Steve Jobs comes to the CNET NY office and hands him a piece of plastic with an Apple on it, Wilson probably won’t be getting an e-reader.

Of course, Apple also made its own announcement yesterday, debuting a couple new iMacs, a new MacBook for fall, and a Magic Mouse with touch capability. Be sure to check out that video up there to the left for my initial impressions, but the short story is that its thin, nonsculpted design and touch features will require a long learning curve, especially if you’re used to contoured, ergonomic mice like the Logitech Performance Mouse MX, my own daily workhorse and an Editors’ Choice.

Finally, Natali tell us about a new Gucci iPhone app that offers new music, information on the latest fashion shows, and news about Gucci products. Although none of us actually own any Gucci (NDC’s Fucci from Canal St. doesn’t count), we can still appreciate this free app for its gaudiness and uselessness. Besides, our idea for an Ed Hardy app sounds much more appealing.

Big thanks to Natali (check her out on Loaded) for doling out solid advice and sticking around through the break. Have a great Wednesday everyone!

EPISODE 450

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Originally posted at The 404

By Chris Scott Barr

The last month has been a pretty big one for e-book readers. Some of the highlights include Sony’s touchscreen e-reader, another from Irex and the international version of the Kindle. Well another big name has decided to throw their hat into the ring, and it’s a damn-good looking hat.

Barnes & Noble announced that they will be launching their own reader, dubbed ‘Nook’. The first thing you’ll notice about the Nook is that it has a pair of screens (not unlike the Alex Dual Screen we saw on Monday) instead of just the traditional one. There’s not much to say about the top 16-color e-ink screen, but the bottom is a full-color 3.5 inch touchscreen LCD. This can be used to browse through your library, or as a virtual keyboard for input.

The second screen isn’t the only thing the Nook has on most popular e-readers. In addition to having 3G service (through AT&T) for downloading content, it will also feature Wi-Fi. Why this has been left out of readers like the Kindle, I still don’t understand. As for content, it will support PDF’s natively,  along with EPUB and various other eReader formats. They claim that you’ll have access to over a million ebooks.

Other notable features include 2GB of internal storage (expandable by 16GB via microSD), the ability to play MP3 audio (but no text-to-speech) and the ability to share books. That’s right, you can “loan” out an e-book to friends using compatible devices for up to 14 days at a time. How cool is that? The only requirement is that your friend needs to have a device that is running the Barns & Noble software.

The Nook is going to go on sale sometime in November for the price of $259. With all of these features, you have to wonder what’s going through Amazon’s mind right now.

[ Barns & Noble ]

(Credit: David Carnoy/CNET)

The Amazon Kindle 2 is a good device. No question about it. Almost everyone who has one seems to love it, and indeed, there’s a lot to love. But no device is perfect, and that’s what keeps us members of the tech media in business. So, I thought I’d start a semi-regular series in which I attempt to give friendly suggestions to companies about how to make their products that much better–how to take it to the next level, if you will. And I’m starting with the Kindle 2. These suggestions aren’t all the same issues that our expert reviewers point out in “the bad” section of our official CNET review, but just assume those are in there, too. And yes, some of these ideas depend on widespread adoption of the Kindle or any e-book reader: but they’ll also help it get to that widespread adoption in the first place. Win-win! Let’s begin.

Make it better with sharing

The Kindle 2, or any electronic book reader, marks a dramatic change from the way we normally read books. Sure, the reading is solitary, but books are fundamentally social in nature. You share books. You recommend them, you loan them out, you pass them around, you mark pages for each other. The Kindle 2 takes all of that away: sure, someone can come along and look at everything you’re currently reading (which has its own set of issues), but you can’t lend anyone a book, you can’t share a subscription, and you can’t even tell someone you loved a passage on a certain page, since the Kindle doesn’t use standard page sizes. OK, Amazon. What can we do here?

Learn from iTunes and allow authorizations. Let me authorize multiple Kindles on a single account so that I can share subscriptions and purchases between them. At minimum, allow two authorizations, which would cover several households; better yet, allow up to four or five. This lets me share a book with a friend, a spouse, a roommate, a parent. This is just a no-brainer. There’s no reason to undo the tradition of sharing the Sunday newspaper by tying a subscription to a single device. Let’s hurry up with that one, shall we?

Learn from the Microsoft Zune and allow one-time content sharing. Let me use the Whispernet to send another Kindle user an entire book that will expire after two or three days, as a sample. Or, heck, if you want to be stingy, just let me send a chapter. Similarly, let me send bookmarked sections, either Kindle-to-Kindle or via e-mail. I’d love to be able to select a block of text and choose, “e-mail this passage,” so I can send particularly poignant text to a friend. This could be a great feature of the Kindle DX: allow limited sharing of helpful textbook passages, or let me play the age-old game of sending newspaper clippings to someone! …